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November 12, 2007

Labor Pool: Opening Doors For The Undocumented

With no plan to beat immigration, union workers ask newcomers to join them

Despite being an English immigrant himself, Samuel Gompers, the founder of the American Federation of Labor, was never a fan of open borders. He once characterized a wave of immigration as "cheap labor... ignorant labor" that "takes our jobs and cuts our wages."

Long after Gompers' death in 1924, that attitude continued to dominate much of the U.S. labor movement. So it might come as a surprise to some to hear Jack Donahue, the business manager of the Worcester County carpenters' union, talk about illegal immigrants.

"As an organization we represent working people," he said. "We don't care where they come from."

It's an attitude that is increasingly common in the labor movement. Since the 1990s, the AFL-CIO has focused on supporting immigrants' rights, seeing immigrants not as competitors but as potential members.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell


Donahue said he has no idea how many undocumented workers are members of his union, Local 107 of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters. The union doesn't ask for verifiable identification before it hands out union cards.

What really drives down wages and working conditions, Donahue said, is not illegal immigration but illegal actions by contractors. One common practice is "misclassifying" employees as independent contractors, which lets construction employers avoid paying taxes, insurance or benefits.

In a high-profile local case, the union is accusing the Boston-based Mayo Group of using subcontractors that misclassify employees working on a major downtown Worcester redevelopment project. (The Mayo Group denies the accusation.)

Donahue says misclassification is not just bad for workers but is "robbing us as a society" by keeping taxes from the government and leaving uninsured workers and their families as a burden on the health care system. The union sees the practice as such a threat that it is actually willing to make common cause with contractors that hire nonunion carpenters, as long as they do it by the book.

"Legitimate businesses are getting beat by people that are breaking the law," he said.

While keeping his focus firmly on employer practices, Donahue notes that illegal immigrants are more likely to be misclassified than other workers. So if the carpenters want to do something about misclassification, they need to not just welcome workers without papers but make special efforts to help them join the union.

About five years ago, the carpenters began using something called a "U-number" to identify workers on their benefits paperwork. That allows those without valid social security numbers to collect the benefits they've been working for, something undocumented workers typically can't do.

The union also hired a Spanish-speaking organizer to reach out to Latino carpenters of any legal status.

Donahue suggests the union is prepared to go even further. It recently began renting space at its Endicott Street building to the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, a group that advocates for immigrants.

"We support what they're doing," Donahue said. "They're trying to represent people who have no representation."

He said anything that can be done to bring illegal immigrants out of the shadows will help keep them from being exploited, and, at the same time, help keep standards for all workers from being driven down.

Plus, unlike Gompers, he acknowledges his kinship with the new immigrants. His grandfather, he said, came to the U.S. from Ireland and soon joined a bakers' union. And his forebears at the Council of Carpenters had similar stories.

"In 1881, this union was founded by immigrants from all over," he said.      

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